Needing You
by Snooze Button
Summary: It has been a month since the Phantom's disappearance, and Christine has found love with Raoul. As the wedding approaches, however, she realizes her craving is something Raoul cannot fulfill - the need to be needed. She misses the Phantom's adoration and passion, and searches Paris for her Angel of Music. But can she sacrifice safe Raoul's protection for the sake of passion?
1. Chapter 1

The sound was unmistakable. It was was a harsh sound of anger and despair, dissonant, ugly, but strangely musical. She'd heard that sound before. It echoed through the alleyway, haunting her.

The dark Paris night was cold and wet. Christine clutched her robe around her, her hood growing damp in the drizzle. She shivered, though from the cold or the sound she couldn't tell.

_It couldn't be him,_ she thought, peeking into the alleyway, darkly twisting through the flickering lantern light. She was imagining the semblance, how it sounded so much like the passionate organ he had played as she lay under his robe in the swirling mist of his boat. _But I remember_...

"Christine!"

She turned at Raoul's voice. He was far down the street already, having lost her at the mouth of the alleyway, frozen by the sound. She picked up the hem of her dress and hurried to him.

"I'm sorry, Raoul."

"Are you alright?" His voice was so warm, so gentle, as he came to meet her, taking her small delicate hands in his own strong ones. He gazed at her with such concern that she wondered how she must have looked - what look of shock or horror came over her as she heard the sound?

"I... I thought I heard something in that alley," she said, rather embarrassed.

"I'm sure it was nothing," he dismissed calmly, and yet his hand came to touch her cheek. "You're so pale." She shook her head lightly, reaching and touching his hand on her face.

"I'm alright. Just a little shaken..." His eyes were so warm, like melting chocolate. How could she be upset when he looks at her like that? He held her close, and whispered softly to her,

"You're safe, Christine." And she knew she was in his arms.

Raoul pulled away and kept her hand firmly in his, leading her through the rainy streets.

Raoul, always her protector. Even now, though the Phantom had disappeared nearly a month ago, Raoul kept Christine close, a constant reminder that he was there, that she no longer had something to fear. She could tell that he worried for her emotional well-being. He was always gentle with her, perhaps expecting fits of hysteria in the wake of her confrontation with the Phantom. He remembered the desperation with which she had kissed that distorted face, remembered her tears as she left the Phantom's lair with him. Something about her had changed.

And Christine knew that Raoul didn't understand. He thought that she was fragile, that the Phantom had traumatized her, that he was a memory that she was desperate to forget. Raoul couldn't understand.

Christine preferred it that way.


	2. Chapter 2

Christine awoke to white light from her window, a brightness she rarely saw from her city apartment. The rain had turned to snow overnight, and Paris was blanketed in dazzling white.

She gazed through the window the window that shined right next to her bed, appreciating the view from her pillow. It was far from the first snow of the season, but a strangely warm February had almost made her forget the beauty of a snowfall.

She didn't dare move, snug in Raoul's arms. She felt him breathing against her back, his chest rising and falling steadily against her, and it was calming to her. His warm breath caressed her neck, reminding her of the way he had kissed it so lovingly the night before. She melted into his embrace as she watched the clock tower, frosted in snow, tick steadily towards dawn.

The clock chime boomed out over the city, and Christine felt Raoul's arms tighten around her, coming alive and holding her close. His lips gently pressed against her neck, sending shivers through it.

They stayed intertwined in each other for a long moment, a moment Christine could have held forever, her eyes closing as if to return to sleep. At last, however, Raoul sat up and got out of bed, dressing from the wardrobe, as Christine lay there and feigned sleep. She didn't know why she did this; perhaps to hold the moment, to return to his arms in her dreams. Also perhaps because she wasn't sure what they would talk about.

Before he left, she felt him kiss her forehead gently and murmur to her quietly,

"I love you, Christine."

And with the snap of the closed door, he was gone. Christine rolled to her side and looked out to the snow again.

Raoul's role as Vicomte de Chagny was beyond Christine. Nobility and politics was a foreign world to her, and she was not expected to play a role. And that was all alright - she was sure Raoul had no interest in her involvement with his work. She needn't feel useless in that regard, as no wife of nobility was expected to be involved in her husband's dealings. She knew that their relationship would survive on love alone. He would always be there to take care of her, and she would live protected and loved.

There were times, however, when she felt inferior in their love. Always protected, always sheltered - but what did she offer him? She loved Raoul, loved his strength and the care with which he treated her. She felt safe with him. And she knew that he loved her, too. And yet, she couldn't shake the question: Why?

Why did he love Christine? For her beauty? For her voice, her charm, or simply because she loved him back? Did her love mean so much to him, really? Or did he expect it, as perhaps he should, a handsome, charming man of nobility and courage and respect?

She didn't know why this plagued her so, and tried to shake it from her mind. Surely other women didn't think this way. Surely women who had earned the gentle, kind love of a vicomte would not question their role in that love. Perhaps it was because she had always been such a burden to him, always protected from the hauntings of the Opera House, always receiving such huge demonstrations of love - and yet, she didn't know how to return that love. How could her love mean what his did, if she could not demonstrate it?

_Stop thinking this way_, she told herself adamantly. There was no need to pick apart their love. _Just let yourself be happy._

But she couldn't, because she knew what it was like to mean to someone what Raoul meant to her - to shatter someone's world with a simple expression of love. To be needed. To mean the world.

Christine got out of bed and dressed, determined not to dwell on these poisonous thoughts. She looked at herself in the mirror, admiring the dress, one Raoul had bought her as a gift. It was teal and ruffled gently at her elbows. This was how a future noblewoman should look.

She pulled out her libretto for the Opera Populaire's upcoming production of _Mireille_, in which she would be playing the title role. Business had almost to returned to normal at the Opera Populaire, with he opera house opening after undergoing heavy renovations, fixing damage the Phantom had done and assuring that he was long gone from the premises. Christine, though excused today for ballet rehearsal, however dilligently prepared for her own rehearsals.

And yet, as she gazed down at staff after staff of complicated music, all the while a different music was echoing through her mind. This despairing organ chords that she had heard yesterday, and all night in her dreams... she could not escape them.

It was too much. Her flat felt so small. She needed to escape, she needed to search. She took her robe from the wardrobe and was off, into the snowy streets.

She'd no idea where that alley was nor where the music was coming from, but she had to look. She walked int the direction of the restaurant Raoul had taken her to the night before - fine dining til then just a romantic dream. She kept her hood up and looked at no one, her guilt and anxiety restricting her. She knew it was wrong, but she had to look.

It was when she had almost resolved to give up that she heard it - the haunting chords of a cathartic organ. The passion and pain in that sound was unmistakable, and it came from the alleyway next to an apothecary.

Her fear left her and she felt almost mesmerized by the sound. She followed it obediently through a twisting alley, not thinking about the solitude of the place or the ominous darkness of the empty path, all the while the music growing louder. And as she felt herself become unbearably near, the music stopped altogether.

Christine turned a corner, the silence rippling through her, deadening the air around her. Ahead was a dead end, ending in a cellar behind a rickety building, several stories high with a decrepit bell tower atop it that rose above the rooftops. The sound had come from what appeared to be an abandoned church.

The cellar doors stood closed and dusty - unused. Perhaps she had imagined the song all along. But it couldn't be; it had been so clear, she had _felt him _in the music... And just as that thought occured to her, another song began to play, a song that was all too familiar. It was from _Don Juan Triumphant_.

She had no choice. The need to know trumped any fear she may have had at the thought of the abandoned cellar, the dark alley, the haunting music, that deformed face... She put Paris and Raoul and all worry from her mind, opened the cellar door, and descended into its darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Hello readers, thanks for reading my story. Just a few things to keep in mind, while the plot of this story is based (in my head, at least) on the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, and may reference songs from Don Juan Triumphant, it deals more broadly with the themes of Christine's and the Erik's inner turmoils rather than the small details, and should fit alright with the book as well. If you're wondering about my vision, the Christine, Phantom, and Raoul in my story are based on their depictions in the 25th Anniversary production played by Sierra Boggess, Ramin Karimloo and Hadley Fraser respectively. Enjoy, and** please review**!_

* * *

It was dark as night in the cellar, and the air was heavy, choking her with the smell of dust and and long-smoldered incense. Her eyes adjusted slowly against the darkness, illuminating the shadows of old chairs and wardrobes, satin veils and shawls hanging every which way like shrouds. Clergy robes draped over mannequins along the walls, and a towering statue, Jesus on the cross, leaned soulless and broken against the corner.

At the far end of the room, somewhat lit by the pathetic light from a cracked, narrow window rising from the ground, was a magnificent, though sagging piano, upon which music was littered, a jumbled mess of sheet music untidily scrawled. Christine made her way around shrouded furniture and mannequins to the piano's corner, in which there was a a bed, the brass frame adorned in velvet and silk fabrics no doubt mad from the shrouds that veiled the cellar.

There was a vanity behind a large wardrobe as well, the mirror shattered into a spider-web of cracks, reflecting Christine in thousands of distorted shards. Rosaries, strung with expensive beads of opal and jade and amethyst, hung all along the vanity, and mannequins stood around it in grand suits, suits that only noblemen and clergymen could afford.

A newspaper was laid out upon the vanity, and curious Christine studied it, startled to read her name.

_Monsieur Raoul __Vicomte de Chagny announces engagement to Opera Populaire soprano Christine Daae..._ She read the unfamiliar headline, unaware her engagement had been reported.

Of course, now that the danger had abated and she could love Raoul in peace, eloping seemed a rash decision, especially for a man of Raoul's stature. They had settled on a March wedding, when the snow had long abated and the wake of tragedy subsided, encouraging celebration.

Christine gazed into the mirror, transfixed by the violent smashes that had shattered it and the tiny pearls of broken sunlight light it reflected with her own face. She was not aware that the organ music had stopped as soon as she had set foot in the cellar until it abruptly revived, the chords of a song she knew well. She jerked out of her reverie and looked at the ceiling, which muffled the sound of the organ above it.

The fear had finally awakened in her, and she was rooted to the floor, hardly daring to breathe and her eyes stared unblinkingly to the ceiling. Was he so close? As Christine stood in what she could only imagine to be his new secret lace of hiding, his new lair, did he sit above her, almost in reach?

Did she want to know?

But that wasn't the question, she realized. She could not leave now, so close, and let the thought of him, of this church and of a revived memory haunt her forever. She broke her glare from the ceiling and crept to a nearby doorway, which opened into a spiral staircase.

She climbed on tiptoe, moving to the music of the song she had once committed to memory, her duet with Don Juan. As she reached the top, she thought she could hear a man's voice, growing from a hum to a quiet, muffled singing.

The staircase opened to the side of the main church chamber, dimly lit only by the colorful light which bled from the stained glass windows and shed color onto the magnificent pillars and shadowed intricate murals, the brilliant architecture of a once grand, breath-taking church. The organ echoed through the cavernous space, magnifying to an all-consuming sound that rippled through Christine. She could feel it in her face, in her mouth and stomach and shaking legs. A voice floated upon the sound, singing in its ghostly, effortless tenor as if only to remember the words.

"Past the point of no return - no going back now: our passion-play has now, at last, begun."

The song seemed to float from Christine's mouth as she found herself at the end of the aisle, music escaping her to sing with him as she gazed at the man's back, mesmerized.

"Past all thought of right or wrong - one final question: how long should we two wait before we're one?" They sang together, their voices playing together in a perfect ethereal dance. And yet, as the final chord sustained and the echoes of their voices hung in the air, the man slumped to the keys of the organ, his shoulders shaking weakly, his breathing becoming suddenly labored.

"Oh Christine," escaped him, a pathetic groan of a sound, that nonetheless filled the space of the church.

It was as if she had been taken by some spirit, and she felt no fear of the man at the organ. As if in a trance she approached him, walking down the aisle as her song floated above her, a celestial sound that he had once taught her to produce, and that flowed effortless now from her, without thinking, without the aid of the organ.

"When will the blood begin to race? The sleeping bud burst into bloom? When will the flames at last consume us...?"

Slowly, head and shoulders rose at the organ bench. He turned his head over his shoulder to see her, and the face she had once looked to for guidance, the side never concealed by the broken mask, came into view.

The Phantom of the Opera looked at her with one wide, unbelieving eye.

"It really is you," he whispered, the tiny sound of his voice blooming in the chamber.


	4. Chapter 4

Christine could not find words. She could only stare back at the frozen figure and wait. Thinking about seeing him again was nothing like actually doing so... She thought somehow that the answers would come before her when they at last met. She would know how to feel, know what to do. She would be decisive. She could reach out and touch him.

But, as the Phantom rose from his bench, she realized she had forgotten the way his face looked without his mask, forgotten truly how it felt to see it.

He stood up and came before her, the same look of disbelief in his wide eyes. They were both in a celestial dream.

Except Christine's had become real with one look at his face, his whole face. She had forgotten exactly how gruesome it was - the way the sinews of muscle in his cheek had contracted into a gaping snarl, the scabbed, cracked texture of his swollen lips, the exposed flesh, like a horrible, deadly burn across his temple. His pale skin, ravaged and torn and distorted, stretched gaunt over his skull. It was hardly a face. It was like looking at death itself, the face of death on the shoulders of a suite gentleman. She had forgotten the chills it gave her. She had forgotten the fear she had once felt.

He approached her as if she were a ghost, his hands outstretched to take her arms, feeling them gently, as though they were fragile glass. He was so close now, his face just above her. And the disbelief in his eyes melted into that look she had seen before - the hungry adoration, shamelessly taking her in the way he only did behind his mask. Calm, nearly triumphant. She had never seen his exposed face like that.

"You've returned to me." His voice, like she remembered it, was strong, commanding. So rich and yet so dark, like warmth floating away.

His hands tightened over her arms, firm and strong, like the claws of a bird of prey. Christine flinched away from him, jerking away as if to retreat, her face betraying her fear at that cold, ghastly face.

And for a moment there was fear in his eyes, too, the grip on his struggling prey tightening further. And then, realization. His hands left her as if scalded, and one flew to the right side of his face, struggling to hide the deformities.

"I'd forgotten," he murmured, his voice collapsing to a deadly tone as he retreated from Christine, shrinking away to the organ. "My mask! I've nothing to cover this accursed face..."

It was amazing to Christine how the realization had changed him. His proper posture had dropped into one of a cornered animal, his powerful, confident voice becoming hoarse, almost animalistic. He turned back to her.

"Wait here for me!" he commanded, before disappearing behind a pillar and down another staircase. The sound of his footsteps hung in the church hall, distant echoes.

Christine, as if released from her trance, could feel herself again. She was here, in the Phantom's new lair, despite how her mind screamed of her poor decisions. She was here despite Raoul, despite the Phantom's history of murder and coercion. Despite the freedom he had given her once, to be free to pursue her own happiness, a safe, untormented life with Raoul.

Was she going back on his favor, returning to him? Or worse, taunting him, having left him once in his piteous despair?

The answers were not coming to her. She'd no idea how she should react, or how he would with her presence. She had no promises for him, and he had given her life once in letting her go.

And she decided, it was only right to leave. She should never have returned, never have opened Pandora's box where once was so much pain, for both of them. Why return empty-handed, with no love for him?

She hurried down the spiral staircase, trying to steady her breathing. She would return home to Raoul, to the life the Phantom had offered her a month before. Perhaps that life was not what she wanted... but it was safer than reopening the wounds of before.

She ran through the cellar, trying to be quiet and yet quick - when she heard his voice.

"Christine."

She turned - and she had run right past him, seated at the piano. There was a new mask on his face, one that was lavish colorful, a masquerade mask. Had he found it amongst the church's treasures?

His voice had returned to its commanding, authoritative confidence.

"Please, sing for me."


	5. Chapter 5

Christine reddened with embarrassment. Though the Phantom did not seem angry at her attempted escape - and she had known his anger before, unconcealed rage - she felt very foolish, like a child caught in the act. She had made her intentions and feelings about the situation quite clear.

She could not ignore his request, however. The voice he used was one she had heard so many times in the comfort of her dressing room. The voice of the Angel of Music. Her guide, inspiring in his own confidence, charismatic in his self-assured wisdom.

He sounded so different from behind the mask.

She approached his piano, drawn like a moth to light. Those memories of the music they would make together were somehow soothing. He looked at her for a moment before returning to his music. It struck her as unsettling, how she could not read his face behind the mask, a deep black mask with dark feathers at the edges.

"Begin here," he instructed, indicating the second staff on one of the many haphazard sheets before them. Christine leaned forward to see the complex music clearly, unconscious of her hands on his arm as she peered over his shoulder until she felt his deep breaths in her palms. She let her hands fall nervously, feeling very small, all too aware of his eyes on her, unsure of the effect of her tough. And then there was the music itself.

"It-it looks very complicated," she said hesitantly, noting the abundant accidentals and inconsistent time signature.

"You have my confidence."

And with just that, she resolved to give it an earnest try. She sang, careful of her technique, singing the wordless notes like a melodious sigh. The song was dissonant, less a song than a lost, unpredictable sound. There were no warm intervals, no simple rhythms. It sounded lonely and ugly, and Christine was sure she couldn't have sung it right.

"I'm sorry. It sounded so strange." Her hand rose to cover her lips in confused shame.

"It was perfection." His voice sounded oddly heavy. Was he... moved? It abruptly reverted back to its authoritative tone. "Sing for me again, and I will accompany you."

As soon as she began to sing, the piano, somehow mimicking the harshness of his aggressive organ in its relatively bright keys, issued an equally dissonant sound. The despairing chords she had heard from the streets beyond.

And yet, with her voice, it became something else entirely. The light, warm, ethereal quality of her voice contrasted with the harshness of the piano like some writhing dance. The strange, unpredictable noted came together, completed each other. Her lost, meandering melody meeting the wrath of his anguished piano. They came together to create music that had movement, had passion. As Christine reached the final bar, she had tears in her eyes.

"Christine?" The Phantom rose and turned to her. He took her hand and looked on her, his eyes unreadable. She took his hand in both of hers, holding it with ardent admiration, making no effort to staunch the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I could feel your music," she whispered. "It's beautiful."

He came close to her, his eyes seeming to penetrate deep into hers. "It's because of you." He reached his careful hand to her cheek, tenderly sweeping away her tears. His voice had become heavy again, somehow raw in contrast to the elevated loftiness his voice usually took. It was sincere; almost vulnerable.

"The beauty of my music is in you. My muse, my angel..."

His hand traced her delicate neck gently, lovingly, as the other snaked around her waist, her hands rising to his lapels, her eyes shining with tears while she was taken with the inexorable urge to get closer to him.

"Only you can inspire true beauty, Christine. Only you can move me, only you can see me." The Phantom pulled her against his chest, Christine willingly in his thrall. "See me, Christine!"

Her hands rose from his shoulders, and in one swift and decisive movement she pulled away his mask.


End file.
